Special Snowflake?

Terms like “special snowflake,” “cuck,” “SJW,” “sheep,” “libtards,” all have one thing in common—they are bullying terms aimed at a political rival, an effort to delegitimize a valid and important point by attempting to shame the messenger into feeling effeminate and cowardly.

For those who like to categorize arguments by logical fallacy, this is also known as an ad hominem attack, albeit one intended to be particularly baiting.

Among other recent political phenomena, this is not normal.

…unless you have the maturity of a 12 year-old child. Granted, we all probably have that inner child surface once in awhile, but the appropriate, mature, i.e., adult response is, “Oh, I’m so sorry. That just slipped out,” followed by an immediate return to rational discourse. This is not what has happened, or is happening, in America right now.

Instead, when I pointed out the inappropriateness of the word “snowflake,” in this case used to describe a developing child (granted, saying the child was NOT a snowflake, but STILL)…this man who was actually attempting to date me, dug in, and followed what was clearly a social misstep, with an additional acidic backwash of the tedious verbal vomit that sloshes out of the mouths of right-wingers on a minute-by-minute basis…hell, let’s be real here…second-by-second basis, nationwide, every day.

So, on December 26th at 12:54 pm, I posted on FB and Twitter regarding the stale and rancorous bullying language that has become so common among right-wingers, this language that has not-so-subtly crept into our nomenclature as if it has any kind of legitimacy, also pasting an image of it to Twitter, because…okay, I was triggered! But like an actual adult, I’m going to admit it, use my words, here, and make a legitimate point about the whole damned thing rather than hurl a volley of tired insults in this guy’s general direction.

Again, this is not normal!

People throwing around words like “snowflake,” “SJW,” and other bullying terms often seem to think themselves clever.

They aren’t.

There is absolutely nothing clever about repeating the same monotonous BS that they’ve heard other people say a million times over. Nearly all of these individuals are simply parroting other, often even more rancorous, people, and considering how many times most of us have heard these words, their edge has dulled, the sting they are attempting to deliver fails utterly, and the end result is it all just winds up looking juvenile and pathetic.

Clever people don’t need to bully other people to make a point, because people with solid critical thinking skills are capable of making points that are clear and rational, and often even quite respectfully, so that their ideas can be heard and processed by others and shed some new light on an issue or an idea, lending real insight to challenging topics.

They can be heard unless the din of rancor has reached the feverish pitch that we hear from right wingers every time they are triggered, and then, a more direct and pointed approach must be taken, but never a bullying approach. This, right here, today, is the more direct, pointed approach necessary to be heard above the din.

It’s time to let these people know that we see their behavior for what it is– just disrespectful bullying and that they sound more like 12 year olds than actual adults capable of civil discourse. We can actively invite them to discuss things like rational adults and we are willing to hear them out as long as they are capable of doing so, but their baiting tactics have no place in the civil discourse of public ideas and this norm is non-negotiable whether you are a student at a four year university, a college professor, a Senator, or even, *cringing* the President of the United States.